Sports excellence begins at school

THE Jinnah Sports Complex in Islamabad was supposed to epitomise our excellence in sports. Conceived in the 1970s by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for the 8th Asian Games, which we never got to host, it was only completed in the 1980s for the 4th SAF Games.

Today, however, Jinnah Sports Complex only reminds us of a lofty dream unfulfilled.

Beijing 2008 is the fourth consecutive Olympics in which Pakistan has failed to get onto the Olympic podium. Rubbing salt into our failure to make it to the 85-country medals table this time was Afghanistans surprise first-time appearance on the medals table with a bronze in taekwondo.

What is wrong with our sports? Why have we, three-time gold medalists in Olympics hockey, not been able to make it to the Olympics medals table for the past 16 years, since we last got a bronze for hockey in the 1992 Olympics?

We can’t keep banging our hopes of ever getting an Olympic medal again on the International Olympic Committee’s decision (pending) to introduce squash and cricket in the Olympic Games, especially when we haven’t been able even to get onto the Olympic podium through hockey for four Olympic Games in a row now.

Since the establishment of the fund-generating Pakistan Sports Trust in 2005, some of our sports federations have been able to hire foreign coaches, get some new equipment and organise more games at the local level. But not much else has changed for sports in Pakistan, certainly not as far as making a mark in the Olympics is concerned.

How do countries, which usually hog the top of the medals table in international games like the Olympics, do it?

Resources and political will aside, one thing which these countries that produce international sports winners have that Pakistan does not is sports education.

Countries that usually win the most medals in international sporting events, like China, the US, the UK, Australia, Russia, etc., do not totally depend on their sports federations to produce top class sportsmen and sportswomen. These countries have a strong system of mass sports education in the form of sports schools and/or sports universities.

The concept of sports school originated in the Soviet Union in the 1930s when the first children and youth sports schools were established, both under the jurisdiction of the sports societies/federations and the normal system of education.

This system of sports education soon spread to and was adopted by other countries like China, the East European nations, North Korea, Cuba, etc., enabling these countries to achieve the highest results at international sports events like the Olympic Games.

Malaysia and Singapore are two countries which too have recently embraced the concept of sports education and established specialised sports schools in their respective countries in the effort to produce top athletes representing their countries at international sports arena and winning top accolades, working with the respective national sports associations/federations to offer the necessary training.

The first sports school in Malaysia, the Bukit Jalil Sports School, opened at the National Sports Complex in Kuala Lumpur in 1996, while the Singapore Sports School was opened in 2004.

The academic programme and mode of study in these schools, which is closely tied to the syllabus of mainstream schools, is such that it allows the students the flexibility to train and compete at sports competitions frequently without comprising their studies.

Other countries which are known to produce winners in international sports, like the UK and Australia, may not have sports schools but they have “sports universities” which have very strong sports programmes and very good reputation for sports.

Examples are Brunel University and the University of Stirling in the UK, and in Australia, the University of Western Australia. Brunel University, for instance, has among its alumni, many Olympic medalists in various sporting disciplines.

Such universities provide student sportsmen and sportswomen a flexible range and choice of plans to support both their sporting and academic aspirations, enabling them not only to study for the usual undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the arts, sciences, management, etc., but also to excel in national and international sports competitions.

Students and youth in Pakistan nowadays generally lack interest in sports, preferring instead to do well in the exam-oriented academic field. With sports interests conflicting with other aspects of life like education and career, it is not surprising that young Pakistanis prefer not to undertake the uncertain path of sports pursuits.

To solve this, we need to adopt an integrated approach to sporting excellence through a systematic provision of support services in education, career and personal development. For any Pakistani to be sports-centric we must provide him/her the necessary support services and help him/her chart out his/her post-secondary education and career pathway.

Thus, for Pakistan to develop a more successful sporting future, we need first to develop sports education. And there is no better city than Islamabad to be the pioneer in sports education.

The capital’s Jinnah Sports Complex provides the perfect ready-made environment for the establishment of Pakistans first sports school where students, while pursuing their secondary education, can train to excel in a number of sporting disciplines.

Such a sports school could also forge strategic alliances with various tertiary institutions in Islamabad, e.g., NUST, International Islamic University, FAST-National University, etc., thus developing a network of collaboration in which students from the sports school can move on to pursue a higher education and at the same time, continue to achieve excellence in sports.

Only perhaps then, can we hope, as is the aim of the Pakistan Sports Trust, “to take Pakistan sports to a place much higher than the existing one, so that the sporting potential of a sizeable number of youth from a population of 160 million Pakistanis is unleashed to make a mark at the global level”.
courtesy: Daily Dawn Lahore